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Rogue PvP guide
Introduction In PvP, most classes will likely attempt to kite a rogue rather than engage one in melee combat. Warriors, other rogues, paladins, and occasionally (brave) shamans are the exceptions. To avoid excessive kiting, make smart use of your cooldowns (Sprint, Blind, Vanish, Preparation) and Crippling Poison. Specific play style and strategy may vary quite widely according to the rogue's talent build. Techniques Re-stealthing is an important rogue skill, and mastering this tactic may greatly improve survivability. This skill can enable a rogue to: * Blind, run out of combat. * Gouge, Sprint, run out of combat. * Vanish. * Apply Crippling Poison on the target and simply run away from combat. * Kidney shot, run away from combat. From stealth, a rogue has many options available to him: * Sap, bandage. * Sap, wait for debuffs or a priest or warlock shield to run out, then Cheap Shot. * Sap, Cheap Shot, run away and restealth for extra points on the target. Against melee characters, stuns are everything. Melee characters usually have high chances to parry/block melee attacks. Since all the Rogues moves are melee, this can easily throw off your timing. Stunning an opponent (and running behind them, forcing them to turn around) removes his ability to parry (and possibly block) your attacks, and lets your moves go through much smoother. Against melee characters wielding a slow weapon, stuns are even more important. A carefully timed kidney shot/gouge can mean avoiding an ugly chunk of Windfury. The best time to stun them is right before they swing. The worst time to stun is right after a swing. Just think of as a big spell with a 3.70 casting time. You wanna interrupt it as late as possible. Against pure casters (and even paladins and other classes like elemental shamans which rely heavily on spells), consider opening with a Garrote instead of cheap shot. Since Garrote (starting at rank 7) silences the opponent for three seconds (completely shutting down mages, priests, and locks), you can think of it as a three second Cheap Shot that costs 10 less energy and leaves a significant dot on the opponent. There are several common misconceptions held by other classes which you can use to your advantage in PvP combat: * All rogues use daggers and consequently must attack from behind. * The fight will open with high burst damage. Between bursts, the rogue is helpless. * A rogue will not rely on dodge during the fight. * Every rogue has Preparation. * Combo points are lost on switching targets. Strategy In general, a rogue has three different play-styles available to him or her, namely: rush-down, control, and burst. Of these three styles, each talent build will tend to be strong in one and adequate/weak in the others. This section will cover each style in detail, including how they're used against opponents and to which talent builds they correspond. *Rush-Down Knowing how to play a rush-down style is utterly important in high level PVP. To summarize, "rushing down" an opponent means playing as aggressively as possible, using most of your combo points for offensively-minded finishers such as Slice and Dice or Rupture and burning your cooldowns to drop an opponent as soon as possible. In a pure rush down style, Vanish is usually used to avoid attacks and get in a quick Cheap Shot. The preferred opener is Garrote to maximize DOT damage and the preferred poisons are crippling and deadly/wound. In a rush-down style, constant movement is crucial to keeping an opponent disoriented and sticking to your target's back. Timing your Kicks and Gouges is essential when rushing down casters since you will be using your combo points for finishers other than Kidney Shot. Rush-downs are best used against players with high health because it puts out the highest damage over time. It is, however, vulnerable to classes that can CC you easily since you spend most of your time out of stealth. *Control Back in the days before the Burning Crusade, Control was king. It was possible to stun-lock most classes from 100-0 and the mark of a good rogue was one who never used his/her cooldowns to win a duel. With the release of The Burning Crusade, however, it became impossible to beat anyone as a rogue without using one's cooldowns due to the high amount of health/armor/resilience players now have. Stun-locking a player from 100-0 now is a near impossibility, unless there is an extreme gear discrepancy between the rogue and his opponent. With this in mind, knowing how to maintain control over an opponent is still an important skill for PVP- it is just not as important as it used to be. With a pure Control style, you should try to avoid using DOTs since Gouge and Blind are crucial to keeping an opponent locked down. Putting a Gouge in-between a Cheap Shot and a Kidney Shot gives you an extra combo point for your Kidney Shot and allows you to regenerate energy for your Kidney Shot combo. Careful use of Blind will allow you to re-stealth and re-open or will give you an opportunity to bandage up. Kicks must be carefully timed- against a caster class, you should try kicking the opponent as soon as their stun wears off to maximize your chance of interrupting a spell. With Improved Kick, it is even more imperative since the added silence effect gives you a 2-second window for your next CC should you fail to interrupt a spell. Using a Control style, you run the risk of drawing out a battle too long to the point where you run out of cooldowns and are basically dead. Since you sacrifice a lot of DPS to keep an opponent locked down, it is best used against medium or low HP opponents. Using a control style is also the best way to take out a healing opponent; whether it be a Restoration Shaman, Restoration Druid, or a Holy Priest; since the frequent interrupts will prevent them from healing through your damage. Control however requires a little luck to pull off smoothly- should one of your Kidney Shots get dodged/parried, you'll lose momentum and may have a hard time recovering afterwards. *Burst The term "burst" refers to the technique of doing a high amount of damage in a short period of time. A pure burst style thus requires re-stealthing and re-opening several times to execute multiple bursts of damage- needless to say, it is something unique to Subtlety Rogues. For Shadowstep Rogues, a Premeditation into a Shadowstep Ambush will take out a huge chunk of health in the very first strike and will also give you 3-4 combo points to build upon or with which to execute an early finisher. For Seal Fate/Premeditation Rogues, a Premeditation into an Ambush may yield anywhere from 3-5 combo points in the opener with which you can use a Cold Blood Eviscerate for maximum damage upfront. The key to playing a burst style is to restealth as much as possible and stay stealthed until you can land the opener. Since there is a significant amount of dead time in-between bursts, it is not wise to use it against healing classes unless you are certain you can kill the target in 1-2 bursts. Otherwise, the target will simply heal through your bursts and you'll have wasted a lot of cooldowns. This style is best used against lightly-armored targets, especially those who cannot be locked down easily- most specifically, the Mage. It also excels in rogue v rogue duels since stealth, more often than not, is the key to victory in such duels. With these three archetypes established, it is important to note which talent builds are best and worst for rushdown, control, and burst styles. In short: *Assassination/Mutilate builds are second to none for control, good for rush downs (assuming you have Dual-wield Specialization), and weak at bursting since their primary burst comes in the form of Cold Blood, a three minute cooldown. *Combat builds are the best for rush downs due to their high sustained dps, poor at control (better if they are mace-specced), and decent at bursting with Blade Flurry and Adrenaline Rush. *Subtlety builds are superb at bursting, weak in rush downs due to their lack of white damage and slow out-of-stealth combo point generation, and decent at control (provided they restealth multiple times in each encounter). *Seal Fate/Premeditation builds are also great at Bursting, good at control due to a high combo point generation along with Quick Recovery to minimize energy loss in case of a whiff, and weak at rush downs due to a lower sustained DPS compared to Assassination and Combat builds. PvP Trinkets As of Patch 2.1.2, : "Insignia of the Alliance, Insignia of the Horde, Medallion of the Alliance, and Medallion of the Horde have all been redesigned. The trinkets for all classes now have the same effect: Dispels all movement impairing effects and all effects that cause loss of control of your character." This means that Kidney Shot and Cheap Shot, but also the Deadly Throw debuff, Poisons, Sap, Blind and Gouge can be removed by any class at any time. Daze (from Blade Twisting) is surprisingly also affected - this misconception exists because there is in fact a difference between player Daze and mob Daze. Mob Daze is in fact only removable by complete immunity effects (pally bubble, Ice Block), while player Daze is treated as any other movement-impairing effect. Classes Rogue In fighting a fellow Rogue, gaining the initial attack is critical, and is often the winning factor of the fight. However victory is not guaranteed; many conditions can prolong or even lose the fight. These may include: having necessary abilities on cooldown (unavailable), using far inferior equipment, or having your pivotal attacks resisted/dodged/parried. If an opponent Rogue manages to re-stealth, he may easily turn the tables on the attacker. To prevent this, try opening with a Cheap Shot, and instead of using five combo points for Kidney Shot or Eviscerate, use Rupture instead (now the other Rogue can't re-stealth or Vanish for 16 seconds). Vanish, open up again with Cheap Shot and stunlock the Rogue until he's dead. Keep an eye on your health, and Blind/heal as necessary. Remember, Deadly Poison from a Rogue can be cleared with Cloak of Shadows then a Vanish can be used for restealthing. Here's a 10step strategy (I just take it you have the 30/0/31) seal fate + premed build): Just pray to God you can see him first, and if you do I highly recommend you sap/do the first step. Poisons- Wound poison- MH Crippling poison- OH (for shiv) Here we go: Premed always before every battle (2combo points/cp) 1)Cheap shot(2/3cp w/ initiative) 2)Shiv, to make sure that crip is on him. (1/2cp with seal fate) 3)Right before CS ends, Kidney so it doesn't parry or anything. (You should have 5cp by now)(1cp with ruthlessness) 4)Backstab (1/2cp with Seal fate) 5)Shiv, to keep that cripp on him and because you don't have enough time to do a 2nd backstab(1/2cp Seal Fate) 6)Right before kidney ends, gouge him, you don't want him to parry or make him gouge you and vanish and re-open on you.(1/2cp Sealfate) 7)Right before gouge ends, you should have 4-5pts by now, rupture him and as soon as you do, vanish. 8)Wait till you have full energy, then open up with cheapshot (2/3cp) 9)Backstab (1/2cp) 10)Hopefully one of them procced off an extra combo point,now 4pt/5pt Cold blood evisc, Most rogues should be dead. Warrior If you're fighting a good warrior you do not want to get hit at all. Well-geared warriors can cut you down in a few attacks, as well as resist or dodge many of your abilities. Be ready to blow some cooldowns. Here's a basic attack plan: * Cheap Shot, sinister strike (or Hemorrhage) then gouge, turn on sprint and rupture as you run through him. If you're unable to get it off fast enough to restealth then make good use of Vanish. * Reopen and kill him. Using evasion against a warrior is generally accepted as helpful (rather than harmful) for the following reasons: *The warrior skill Overpower will hurt, but is generally much less painful than absorbing the damage from all of his attacks. *The warrior will likely generate less rage. *The Rogue will be dodging some of the warrior's attacks anyway. Here's a small 15 step guide(30/0/31 Seal fate, premed with a 1.4 or lower dagger in Offhand) *Poisons: *Wound poison = Main hand hand, you know incase he bandages, and you don't want to have deadly poison on since you might have to blind him. *Crippling poison = Off hand, for shiv. Alright here we go: *Sap the Warrior, and put up Premed for 2cp *Garrote, it ignores armor, enough said (1cp or 2 with Initiative) *Shiv, you know why (1cp or 2 with Seal fate) *You should now have 4-5cp now, Rupture, it ignores armor. -If you are fighting a Dwarf, they can stone form out of it, blind now and re-stealth and repeat starting from the first step. -Don't worry your rupture and garrote cannot be stone formed out 2 times in 1 fight. *As soon as you rupture, Vanish out. If he was able to get a DoT on you, you should just sprint out and wait till' they are off then vanish *Open up with Cheap shot (2cp or 3 with Initiative) *Backstab (1cp or 2 Seal Fate) *Cold blood+Eviscerate, Cold blood will guarantee a Crit hit, so you can 4cp(You will often have 5) Eviscerate *Sprint and (if wanted) Pop Evasion, and do rogue style(strafing around the Warrior so he doesn't hit you)and spam back stab, and shiv when crippling isn't applied. And Eviscerate when you have 5 *Most average geared Warriors should be dead. *If he is not dead, Blind + Bandage and Vanish (again dwarfs can stone form if they haven't already, so just...Vanish. *Re-open with another Cheap shot (2 or 3 with Initiative *Backstab (1 or 2 with Seal Fate) *Pray to God that they both procced off another combo point, and... *Rupture, if he isn't quite dead yet *Or, Eviscerate and kill him *Now you can Cloak of Shadows(just to remove unwanted things,and it makes you look cool), Prep and Vanish. Reopen starting with step one Priest Priests can essentially be divided into "Shadow" (i.e. those who do not cast Holy spells) and non-Shadow. Surprisingly, both types dominate a fight by out-healing the damage caused by their attacker. Shadow Priests The Shadow Priest relies on fear (Psychic Scream), healing (Vampiric Embrace and Power Word: Shield), slowing effects (Mind Flay) and direct damage (Mind Blast). Reliance on Psychic Scream is essential to every fight (see Priest PVP tactics) A good Shadow Priest will always begin a fight with PW:S on. At level 70, this absorbs 1315 damage plus 20% of the player's +heal stat (keep in mind that quite a bit of caster gear contains both +heal and +damage). They may then fear you with Psychic Scream - an 8 second instant-cast fear on a 30 second cooldown, the cooldown lowered by talents. This is often used to unstealth the Rogue or used immediately after the rogue's initial attack in order for the Priest to gain distance. While feared, a wise Priest will afflict you with several dots and VE while you try to regain ground. As you approach melee range, the Priest may Mind Flay you to keep you at a distance. If you manage to reach melee range, it's likely that PW:S will be ready once again and the Priest will repeat their initial actions. So, how can you possibly combat this? The key observation is that you should prevent the Shadow Priest from healing (or absorbing damage) at all times. This means preventing fear, removing Vampiric Embrace and silencing in expectation of PW:S. * Keep Crippling/Mind-Numbing and Wound Poison on your weapons to allow for a greater margin of error on you, the Rogue's, part. * Only use cooldowns when you are not susceptible to fear. * On a related note, save your Cloak of Shadows for when you absolutely need to pummel the Priest and cannot afford to be feared * Remember that PW:S has a 30 second duration, after which it fades. Keep the Priest incapacitated immediately afterwards. * A Shadow Priest without mana cannot do anything, not even shift out of Shadowform to heal. At the absolute best, they can fear you and hope that enough mana regenerates during that time to cast another spell. Finally, having 350 Shadow Resist for an expected encounter never hurts. Other Priests If you catch a Priest without his shields up, the fight is already yours. Stunlock him and kill him. If he does have his shields up, hit him a lot to take them down. Before he puts his shield back up, blind him and wait for the Shadow Word: Pain to fade. Vanish again and open up with Cheap Shot, stunlocking him until you've killed him. Trinket his fear if necessary. Mage Open with Garrote on a mage, for the silence effect, leaving the mage open to beat up on. Their next move will likely be Frost Nova and/or Blink; simply cloak of shadow, then either Kidney Shot or Cold Blood + Eviscerate. With the addition of the Cloak of Shadows skill at level 66, being caught in the Frost Nova is not as damaging as it used to be. With a bit of luck you'll be able to Gouge before your 5 seconds of virtual spell-immunity are over. Tips: Before opening, try throwing a distraction from as far way as possible. Aware that a rogue is nearby, mages will often waste all of their mana trying to catch you in their AoEs. If you see the mage channeling a frost spell, kick him. This will prevent him from casting any other frost spell, which have the highest chance of allowing him to kite you (with the obvious exception of Frost Armor) for the next few seconds. If you do suffer from Frost Armor, Sprint and Kidney Shot if you have 4 or 5 combo points built up. This will help the most against frost spec mages. If you see Pyroblast, run through the mage while it is near completion. Don't bother to run around him as he will just spin around. Normally, running through an opponent confuses them and they take an extra second to decide which way to turn. The goal of a rogue is to be sneaky, after all. If you get hit by frost nova, vanish. This will break it and stop any spell being cast on you. If possible, wait until you have 4 combo points built up (3 if you're subtlety) so you will come out of stealth with 5 CP. With the Improved Sprint talent, Sprint breaks frost nova or any slowing effects on you. Combined with a crippling poison on him, he'll be going nowhere in a hurry, least of all kiting you. Druid Feral The inherent weaknesses of the feral forms are as follows: *'Cat Weaknesses' (see Cat Form) ** Cat Form gives Druids twice as much armour as a Rogue of equal level, but lower agility; they usually only have at best 75% of a Rogue's Dodge. Autoattacks will hit (and crit) for as much as a combat Rogue, and their attack speed is normalized to 1 sec. Shred is equivalent to a Backstab, Claw and Rake are equivalent to more powerful versions of Sinister Strike and Shiv, they have no directional requirements, and there are talents which greatly increase their damage. However, Druids have no Feral talents for increased energy regeneration. **In addition, Feral Druids can get the equivalent of 5/5 MoD in 3 talent points, so expect every Druid to have improved stealth. **If fully specced feral, a Druid with Mangle (increased Shred and bleed damage by 30%) can pose a significant threat to rogue. If allowed to get off a Rip with 3-5 combo points and mangle up the rogue can bleed for up to 3.5k over 12 seconds and it cannot be removed. Be weary of the druid finisher Maim as well, it works like Gauge but can load 1k damage before incapacitating for 6 seconds. *'Bear Weaknesses' ** Bears have almost 5 times your armour and around 1.5 times your health. Of course, bleed and poison abilities ignore armour, and the form itself gives no inherent stun or snare resists. In addition, Bears have at their disposal fewer Rage-based instant attacks. It is common to see three types of Feral Druids: #'The shift-crazy Druid' #* They may start out in cat form, switch to bear to stun you, heal and snare, switch to travel form to get out of range and combat, then repeat by switching back to cat form. The key is to catch them in cat or caster form, where they are relatively weak. #* If you are hit by a pounce (which has a bleed effect), blind the cat (they cannot shift out of it), wait for the DoT to end, bandage and reopen the fight. Alternatively, blow Evasion and melee them down. If you have no cooldowns to use, or wish to save them, keep them stunned and make sure to Expose Armour them. #* If a cat senses that you are trying to kite them, they will promptly Faerie Fire/DoT/stun you and shift to bear for the long haul. See below on how to handle bears. #* Keep in mind that using Evasion is a signal for the Druid to root you. Use this to your advantage, as they will no doubt try to flee from melee range; root them yourself. #'Bear-only' #* A bear will always open with a stun. It's safe to eat the first stun and resulting damage, as the Druid probably has no intention of shifting out. If you're a dagger Rogue, begin to bleed the bear. If you're a combat Rogue, don't be afraid to blow Adrenaline Rush, speed modifiers (Slice and Dice, etc), Expose Armor and just burn him down. Be wary while blowing any cooldowns as the bear will mostly likely try to stun you to reduce their effectiveness. #* Once the Druid reaches 1/3 health or feels that he's losing, it's likely that he will try to Bash (stun) you, and either shift and heal or use Frenzied Regeneration. Keep Evasion for this moment or alternatively keep a Kidney Shot / Gouge ready (his stun will end before yours). #* Improved Leader of the Pack has a chance to heal 4% of a Druid's total health relative to what form they are in. For a bear, this is a large chunk of health. Unfortunately, as with Frenzied Regeneration, this is not a spell and cannot be interrupted by anything. #'Cat-only' #* Treat as another Rogue. Many cats will use Dash and run erratically in order to desync your client and land blows to your back (which cannot be dodged). Stunning the cat or using Sprint will resolve this problem. #* A cat will most certainly spam Mangle, Claw, and Rake, but like all melee attacks, they can be dodged. Balance Jokes aside, a Balance Druid will try to Moonfire/Starfire you to death. Expect every Balance Druid to have Nature's Grasp, which has a (base) chance of 35% to afflict you with Entangling Roots for every one of your hits. Either Vanish or CloS, and quickly catch up to them, making sure to apply a snare. Alternatively, wait until they start casting Starfire (this is the hard-hitting spell) and use CloS at the last minute. In summary, remove their ability to kite you while Moonfire/Starfire spamming, and don't be afraid to use Expose Armour. Restoration Restoration druids will often fight either as a balance or a feral druid, by wearing the appropriate gear. Tactics should be very similar (those restoration talents affecting feral combat are usually already taken by most feral druids, or even the 70% chance to resist healing spell cast delay). Nature's swiftness will allow them to instantly heal themselves once or maybe twice during the fight, as well as swiftmend (although with not so devastating effects), but that's probably it. Apart from a few tricks, they should cause you less trouble. Many rogues make the mistake of underestimating a restoration druid wearing full healing gear, and you shouldn't be one of them. First of all, if a druid wants to leave combat, he will. Crippling poison can be either cured or ignored by shapeshifting, they can run faster than you (even if you sprint as they dash away in cat form, practically every PvP healer has "nature's grasp"; once you're stuck for a second or two, you won't be able to catch them), and they can heal on the run -faster than you may think-. Also note that, depending on respective gears and talents, their healing capability can surpass your damage. Spell-interrupt skills won't be a problem for them if they manage to stack enough HoTs on themselves, so your stun-locks must be as close to perfect as possible. Sustained-DPS builds may have real trouble trying to kill a resto druid in a reasonable amount of time; assassination trees are the most suited for this, but beware that a druid low on mana may not use nature's swiftness to heal himself but to cyclone you and run away instead. And a druid can go really far in 6 seconds. If you can't get a swift kill, unless it's just you and him the best thing you can do is abort the attack and try some other time.. or someone else. Hunter The Hunter will try to kite you and you will try to avoid being kited so you can kill him. Hunter fights are reaction-and-cooldown based, so they vary greatly from encounter to encounter. Here are a few guidelines to remember, though: * Crippling Poison is the way to go against a Hunter, because it slows down his movement speed. * Hunter abilities that counter your Stealth are aggressive-mode pets, Flare, Track Hidden, and Serpent Sting. You can Vanish out of Hunter's Mark and Cloak-Vanish out of Serpent Sting, but Cloak of Shadows does not negate the Flare effect. * If a Hunter sends his pet on you from range and you stealth, the pet will keep chasing you and eventually unstealth you - this is not considered a bug or exploit. You may Vanish to get the pet off you. * Keep traps in mind at all times. You'll probably run into Freezing Trap, so the Hunter can get some distance on you. Don't freak out if you see the trap go down, just remember that it has a two second arming time, giving you some time to step away or use Cloak of Shadows. To avoid getting Scatter Shot and wandering into the trap, you should pop your cloak in most of these situations. If you are afflicted with Serpent Sting or another damage over time effect, the DoT will free you from the Freezing Trap the next time it ticks. Note that skilled hunters may hit you with a debuffing sting such as Scorpid Sting inside the frost trap to remove their DoT. If you get immobilized in a Frost Trap, Snake Trap etc. due to Entrapment, the only way to get out is Cloak-Vanish or the Gnome racial Escape Artist. * Remember Insignia of the Alliance/Horde, which gets the hunter out of slowing effects and stuns. Most hunters will use the insignia after you Kidney Shot him, so always watch the hunter when using Kidney Shot on him, if you notice that a white animation is thrown at his head, he used his trinket - so use Gouge to regain control and/or Shiv him to re-apply Crippling Poison. * If you see the hunter use Aspect of the Cheetah don't bother to sprint first. Use your thrown/bow/gun or Deadly Throw first, then sprint. This will ensure that the Hunter stays put and he will be forced to switch aspects (if they have any idea how to play). * Cloak of Shadows will not remove flares or prevent you from being flared. * It's a bad idea to sap the hunter and kill his pet. You'll need at least 40 seconds to kill his pet, while Sap lasts 10 seconds max. Usually, the damage from the pet will not be too much of a threat, but if you feel that the pet is inflicting too much damage on you, pop Evasion. If you happen to be dueling a hunter, more often than not, the hunter will sit on his Flare and Freezing Trap waiting for you to come. As a Subtlety rogue, Dirty Deeds works wonders here to sap the target in preparation for a Cloak of Shadows burst. As an Assassination or Combat specced rogue though, the key to beating this tactic is to give up the opener. Basically, walk into his flare with Cloak of Shadows up and Shiv your heart out until the hunter is snared. At this point, build up combo points for Slice and Dice and proceed to rush him down as fast as possible. A full Expose Armor will greatly increase the amount of damage the hunter takes; however, if you are short on combo points, you may want to save it for a Kidney Shot or some other offensive finishers. Warlock The trick to Warlocks is identifying early on if the Warlock is actually killable. To summarize, Warlocks come in two varieties: Soul-Linked and non Soul-Linked, the latter being possible for a rogue to take on and the former being impossible (assuming equal gear and skill). *Destruction Warlocks Among non Soul-Linked Warlocks, Destruction Warlocks are by far the easiest to take down. They are susceptible to every CC a rogue can dish out, the majority of their damage comes from spells with a cast time that can be easily interrupted, they have no instant-cast fear and assuming the Warlock is specced for PVE, they will likely have high +spell damage but low health. These Warlocks, unlike Affliction Warlocks, also have no snares so keeping up with them should never be a problem. The only barrier to destroying such Warlocks is their pet, namely the Succubus. Taking out a Warlock with a Succubus can be done in two ways, either by killing the pet first and then the Warlock or by killing the Warlock while the pet is CC'ed with Blind. To kill the pet first, you'll have to trinket out of the first charm, Blind the Warlock and then proceed to take out the pet either by Vanishing and re-opening on it or just by smacking it really really hard with your weapon. With the pet down, the Warlock will be easy-pickings. The other strategy requires that you trinket out of the first charm, Blind the Succubus, and rush down the Warlock as fast as possible. Either way, it shouldn't be too hard- Destruction Warlocks are one of the easiest classes for a rogue to fight. *Affliction Warlocks Affliction Warlocks, on the other hand, are much more difficult to fight. In many ways, Affliction Warlocks resemble Shadow Priests. It is important, however, to note a few significant differences between them and Shadow Priests. First of all, they have a pet which can either provide improved stealth detection (Felhunter) or a powerful shield sometime mid-fight (Voidwalker). The Succubus is an unlikely choice since you'll be covered in DOTs from head to toe and the Imp, though great for Dark Pact, is borderline useless in PVP. This pet, if used wisely, can also harass you much like a Hunter's pet, preventing you from re-stealthing without using Vanish. Secondly, the Warlock snare is a dispellable debuff called Curse of Exhaustion completely different from the Shadow Priest's channeled snare, Mind Flay. This is an important distinction for Gnome rogues since it means that Escape Artist will remove it, unlike Mind Flay. It is, however, easily recastable and can be executed on the run, unlike Mind Flay, making it trivially easy for them to kite you. Thirdly, the amount of health a Warlock receives by Drain-Tanking is far greater than the returns a Shadow Priest receives from Vampiric Embrace. It is thus imperative that you interrupt Drain Life as soon as possible to prevent this and lock out their most important school of magic, Shadow. Finally, unlike most casting classes, it is physically impossible to run an Affliction Warlock out of mana. Between Life Tap/Drain Life/Siphon Life and Dark Pact, their mana can be constantly replenished. Having drawn out these distinctions, it is easy to see how fighting an Affliction Warlock can be significantly more difficult than fighting a Shadow Priest. In order to defeat an Affliction Warlock, you must have a lot of luck, high dps and perfect control over them at all times. Allowing even one gap in your control barrage can mean an Insta-Howl of Terror or a Death Coil to turn the tables on you. Only Mutilate rogues and Seal Fate/Premeditation rogues are capable of this level of control. Opening with a Cheap Shot is a must- it locks them in place, allowing for a continuous stream of damage and awarding you 2-3 combo points. If you are Mutilate, cast Mutilate for 4-5 points; if SF/Premed, cast Backstab for 3-5 combo points. When Cheap Shot ends, use your Kidney Shot and proceed to unload on them. Assassin rogues have the advantage here due to the 10% Find Weakness damage buff and a possible 9% damage buff from Improved Kidney Shot if you're specced into it. During the Kidney Shot, cast Cold Blood Mutilate for 3-4 combo points, use Eviscerate, and cast another Mutilate just before the Kidney Shot ends. Similarly, an SF/Premed rogue will want to Backstab for 4-5 points and Cold Blood Eviscerate just before the Kidney Shot ends. If you're lucky, the Eviscerate will have given you an extra 25 energy, allowing you to squeeze off a vanish just as the Kidney Shot ends. If it doesn't, you're kinda screwed and will have to improvise. Once Vanished, run away and wait a bit to prevent diminishing returns on your stuns. If the Warlock tries to bandage, distract and reopen on him/her. As a Seal Fate/Premeditation rogue, you'll be able to repeat this sequence two more times, eventually killing them if all goes well. As Mutilate however, your performance after the first Vanish is utterly crucial. If you reopen too early (or are forced to do so for whatever reason) expect diminishing returns on your Cheap Shot. In such a case, forgo using Mutilate and instead get ready to Gouge the Warlock as soon as they come out of the stun. As Gouge wears off, pop Cloak of Shadows, Mutilate them once and then Blind them as soon as you get enough energy. When Blind finally wears off, you'll have 5 combo points for a full Kidney Shot and the duration will have been long enough to prevent diminishing returns. At this point, go crazy and do everything in your power to finish them off. Of course, if the Warlock trinkets or resists any of these stuns, you'll be screwed :D. *Demonology Warlocks Soul-Linked Warlocks are basically much like the Warlocks above except with mitigation and health on par with Warriors and hunter-like pets. These generally come in two varieties, Siphon Life/Soul Link and Felguard/Soul Link. Siphon Life/Soul Link Warlocks use the Voidwalker for an additional 10% physical damage mitigation (raising their effective armor level to 30% reduction + whatever their natural armor reduction is) and kite you around much like regular Affliction Warlocks. Felguard/Soul Link Warlocks are all brute force- their pet takes out a large amount of damage and has the ability to stun-charge you from range. There is no accepted strategy to fighting these types of Warlocks, much like how there is no accepted strategy for Warriors fighting Frost Mages. The best way to beat this type of Warlock is through a moral victory- just don't fight them and be a good sport if you absolutely must. Chances are the Warlock in question will gloat over you; yet, knowing the insurmountable odds involved, you can walk away the better man, having fought the noblest fight with dignity and honor. Paladin This is one of the most difficult classes for Rogues to beat. Paladins are basically tanks that can heal themselves, so it makes it that much harder. There are several things to remember whilst fighting Paladins. The basic rule is "trick them into popping their shield, then restealth and kill them". * Never let them Divine Shield/heal themselves. That effectively restarts the fight for you minus some of your health/cooldowns. If they cast Divine Shield, simply waste 1 second checking if they're going to heal themselves, if you see them beginning to cast heal, use bandage fast, and when you're done, or they begin moving to you, move back, you must be out of combat at the moment, so stealth fast, and reopen the fight, with you and the Paladin full on HP, but he's probably low on mana. * If a Paladin knows you're coming, they will spam Consecration so they can break your stealth. There are two things to do when they do this, one is to stay waiting until they feel like you left, or just give up and try attacking him between two Consecrations, which is not preferred. -Note: Cloak of Shadows does NOT remove stealth and thus if you wish, you can use this to get through consecrate. Though this is not really recommended as this removes the ability to use it in combat. * Keeping a Paladin stunlocked is essential, therefore * Cheap Shot is a valid opener against a Paladin unless your ambush gives a guaranteed kill. However many Paladins will simply Divine Shield out of it and kill you, which is a low chance that they might do it, usually a Paladin prefers the big chance that he wins against you, which means saving his Divine Shield for a rainy day -When low on HP-, so wasting the Divine Shield only for stopping stunlock is useless, and a waste of a 5 minutes cooldown, and a making-sure he's free from Divine Shields for 1 minute, thanks to Forbearance. Once they know you're there, level 1 consecrates will easily prevent you from getting another opener. * Evasion is invaluable against a Paladin. This will allow you to dodge every hard-hitting 2-hander blow. Retribution trees have their own versions of stunlock with hammer and repent and will slam you with a lot of damage in that time with Seal of Command, Consecration, and Crusader Strike. Never open on a protection tree unless you're very sure of what you're doing; holy shield, Redoubt, and Reckoning easily tear Rogues apart. Probably your easiest fight will be with a Holy tree since Rogues fare better against casters. Good Paladins will shield themselves out of stunlocks at all the right times, spam Consecration to stop Vanish, and keep you slow and unhappy with Judgement of Justice. Hammer of Wrath can be used in a far range and the 1 sec casting time makes it very hard to counter, so once you're low on HP, and you see the Paladin casting his Hammer of Wrath, say your prayers. Shaman Rogues fare pretty well against Shamans because they have no crowd control. You can use Evasion to negate their melee damage and Cloak of Shadows + Deadly Throw to avoid being kited. Provided you maintain a certain degree of control over your opponent during the entire fight, you should be able to kill most Shamans without problems. Anticipate the trinket as you stun them and have energy for a Gouge ready. You should stunlock and control Elemental and Enhancement Shamans, and try to rush down Restoration Shamans. Wound poison is a must against Resto Shamans, because you want him to waste as much mana as possible. If you see a poison cleansing totem being dropped, kill it fast and get back in his face. Resto Shamans cannot kite you well because they waste the Earth Totem slot on poison cleansing, and will waste too much mana/global cooldown on using their poison removal spell. Note that if the Shaman sets you up you may lose the fight, this is especially true for Windfury bombing enhancement Shamans. As of patch 2.2, Earthbind Totem doesn't remove stealth anymore. Use Cloak of Shadows and get the opener, or if you have 2/2 Dirty Tricks simply sap him and kill the totems, then restealth and get the opener. Category:Guides Category:PvP Category:Tactics